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gunnerpalace · 4 years

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Can I ask your opinion on Fade to Black? I just rewatched it and my Ichiruki heart is just overflowing with feels! But anyways I love your analysis and opinions on all things Bleach.

I am that rare IR who does not actually like Fade to Black very much. I can see what it was trying to do, and I appreciate the idea in concept (and some little moments here and there) but I am not at all a fan of how it was actually put together and executed. I guess I’ll do this as a pros and cons list:

PROS:

I don’t like Mayuri but I sort of like how he was handled in this movie. Him keeping a physical backup of his brain is a cool sci-fi idea for dealing with advancing the plot later.

Dark Rukia’s design is fairly cool. Especially in the little promo book that came with the movie, which you sometimes see screenshots of floating around.

The degree of attachment Ichigo shows toward Rukia is endearing.

The scene where Kisuke asks what Rukia is to Ichigo is cute and pretty spot-on.

Kisuke showing up in his old captain’s uniform for seemingly no reason other than to tweak Yamamoto’s nose is pretty funny. Him and Yoruichi basically alluding to the Soul Society arc is also kind of cute.

Ichigo using some special technique that’s unique to him in order to find Rukia (because it ain’t reiraku) is great.

The fight scene between Ichigo and Dark Rukia, and how Ichigo solves it and saves her, is well done and engaging.

Their little hug scene that’s gif’d on here a lot is sweet.

The ending where they have this discussion about how maybe this isn’t the first time they’ve met feels a little underplayed (they’re real far apart and stoic for people discussing such mushy things) but it’s still nice.

CONS:

I’m really tired of arcs about rescuing Rukia and reducing her to a damsel in distress, because she’s better than that. The Soul Society arc was the first time, and it was set up well and worked just fine—it’s classic. Fade to Black’s reasons are contrived (more on that later) and derivative. Then Hell Verse did it again and it was just stupid by that point. There should’ve been a rescue Ichigo movie instead, and the Xcution arc doesn’t really count since that’s presented as a horror story mostly from his perspective.

Rukia’s has had a hard life as a character and has been dumped on consistently, so I view adding yet more misery and pain onto her as gratuitous and frankly kind of insulting in general.

While Dark Rukia’s design is cool, it’s not really Rukia at all. It is very clear she’s an unwilling participant. It kinda looks like her, but it’s all Homura and Shizuku, they’re just forcing her along into it. And you know what? That’s basically rape, even if it’s not sexual rape. It’s still a total loss of consent and bodily autonomy. I’m pretty not cool with a plot that boils down to Rukia being raped.

I just hate the visual design of the kids. I can’t explain why beyond saying they just look out of place in the setting. Homura in particular looks like she walked off the set of Yu-Gi-Oh.

The backstory with the two kids frankly doesn’t make much sense. She meets Renji when she’s seemingly somewhere around the age of Karin or Yuzu (like 8-12) and they and their friends are together for ten years. At the end of that, she enters the Academy. In the flashbacks with these kids, she looks indistinguishable from how she does in the present? When exactly was this supposed to be happening?

The entire plot of Soul Society not knowing who Rukia is is stupid. Soul Society is a bureaucracy. From what we are shown, the majority of what they do every single day is paperwork. Just like Japan still to this day loves forms in triplicate, Soul Society fucking loves paperwork. And they love records and archives. And all Byakuya can do is find one lone book that references Rukia? There would be literally hundreds and hundreds and thousands of documents referencing her, or signed by her. The most casual search would indicate she was real.

Kon is annoying as hell in this movie. Like, he’s usually annoying, but not as much as he is here. It’s distracting and grating.

Ichigo is a continual disappointment in this movie. There are so many things that I will give them their own entries denoted by letters below:

A. People say he remembers Rukia when everyone else forgets. He doesn’t. Only Kon remembers Rukia. Kon jogs Ichigo’s memory. Ichigo does admittedly remember fully and quickly, which puts him ahead of everyone else, but he still forgets to begin with. That’s stupid.

B. Ichigo is extremely wishy-washy in this movie. He requires a speech from Kon, can’t or won’t beat Shuhei of all people even with his mask on, and loses to Toushirou. It’s pathetic. I get it, he’s a sad puppy without Rukia. It’s still pathetic to watch. The only time in the manga canon where his confidence wavers when it comes to trying to get to Rukia is during the Soul Society arc, when he wants to stay and wait for Ganju so they can settle their quarrel, and you can read that as being unique because it turns out they’re cousins and Ichigo may know something is unique, even if he doesn’t know it. This shit of him becoming discouraged and sad when trying to get to her is out-of-character.

C. This is an extension of (B), but like. Okay, when Orikasa Fumiko is voicing Rukia, and she screams in agony or despair, it chills me to the bone. I cannot explain to you how much I don’t like hearing it. It makes me anxious and makes me angry. She did it on the Senzaikyu when Gin broke her resolve to face death, and she does it in this movie when the Hollow fusion starts. And all Ichigo can do… is stand there uselessly going “Rukia…” like it’s nothing unusual. If he had been on the Senzaikyu bridge when Gin had done what he’d done, and he’d heard Rukia scream like that, he’d have fucking murdered Gin right then and there in cold blood. And here he faces the equivalent and does nothing. That’s not my boy. That’s not Ichigo.

D. When Rukia is crying over the deaths of Homura and Shizuku, Ichigo just stands there uselessly beside Renji and Byakuya and does nothing to console her. Renji and Byakuya at least have an excuse because they still don’t remember her. What’s Ichigo’s? Again, not him. Go to her you moron. At least grasp her shoulder. Not the Ichigo I know.

The fight scene with the goo monster is dumb as hell. Yamamoto should be able to solo it. He activated Ryuujin Jakka and… completely disappears from the fight. He just straight up vanishes. Because you can tell they realized he should be able to solo it and that would deprive them of everyone else getting a fight too. So he just instant transmissions out of the entire movie. And we get contrived shit like the monster being faster than Yoruichi and Soi-Fon so that Kisuke can heroically save Yoruichi (because him doing it in the Yammy fight wasn’t enough already). It’s just contrived, gratuitous, and pointless.

While the IchiRuki moments are very cute (if a little overly restrained, in my opinion) I feel like the rest of the movie that is set up to make them happen is a hot mess. Things happen because they need to for the plot to work, not because it makes sense or is in character for them to happen. I can’t stand movies that are made that way for any franchise, and seeing characters I care about deeply behave in such ways really just kinda pisses me off. The story beats are derivative and generally inferior versions of things we’ve already seen.

Movie Ichigo is generally out-of-character as fuck (and not just in this movie!) in a way that reminds me of like, Jean-Luc Picard in the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies (wherein he acts basically nothing like he does on the TV show). And Movie Rukia seems generally reduced to a background character.

I said recently that Rukia and Doomguy would be friends, and you know what? I would watch that movie instead of Fade to Black or Hell Verse, to be honest. Let’s do an outline.

Ichigo is kidnapped by some denizen of Hell (Kokutou and Shuren and company, I guess? they can still be anime pretty boys even if they’re damned souls, maybe they have terrible demonic forms or something) to be used as a reiatsu battery or some shit for evil purposes. (Breaking out of Hell to overrun the other worlds?) Ichigo’s energy running wild causes some kind of temporal and dimensional vortex which draws in the Doomguy. He finds himself in the upper levels of Bleach’s Hell and does what he does, methodically murdering his way about.

Rukia is sent to investigate Ichigo’s disappearance and eventually figures out Ichigo is in Hell, and so goes to save him (against orders, with the help of Kisuke and maybe the others). There she encounters Doomguy, and is at first horrified, but she notices the rabbit’s foot he keeps on him. She decides to help him, and they’re left alone for a minute, assessing each other.

Despite their initial lack of a shared language (maybe his helmet can translate Japanese?), she communicates to him (with Chappy drawings!) that she has to go deeper into Hell to save Ichigo. Given their shared love of bunnies, Doomguy is down with that. She rides on his back as she did with Ichigo, working some of his spare guns as they go. (Imagine Rukia cocking a shotgun meaningfully tho…) Along the way Rukia freezes some dudes and Doomguy punches their heads off. The usual stuff. She tells him about Ichigo as they go, like she did to Hanataro. Doomguy says nothing because he’s Doomguy, but he seems to listen.

They eventually get to Ichigo and liberate him through the judicious application of firepower. His raging reiatsu causes a lot of damage to the surrounding environment. Doomguy takes advantage of the chaos to commit more murder, giving Ichigo and Rukia time to have a tender reunion moment. The three then team up to take on Kokutou, Shuren, and the other baddies, possibly over the course of several different battles. (Probably like a third or so of the movie is this, and maybe the others show up to pair off and get some screen time. Doesn’t really matter.)

Eventually Shuren and the other chumps die and Kokutou becomes the big bad. Ichigo and Rukia do a big tag-team bankai attack to kill him after Doomguy provides them with an opening with a BFG9000 shot (as he is mostly doing add-clear).

Victorious, the three escape to the upper levels of Hell again, where they are met by reinforcements from Soul Society and explain that Doomguy is a friend. Eventually, Kisuke does some technobabble shizzlewizzle to send Doomguy back to the dimensions he more properly belongs to. Rukia gives him a parting gift of a drawing of him and Daisy in happier times. Ichigo gives him a fistbump and a CD player with some punk music, or a collection of edgy Shakespearean poetry or something.

Ichigo and Rukia share an epilogue to decompress and have some playful banter about how she’ll always be there for him just like he’s there for her.

Roll credits to At Doom’s Gate or BFG Division. Mid-credit sequence is Doomguy sitting on a massive demon corpse, making a detailed Chappy drawing of himself, Rukia, and Ichigo killing demons together as friends. End-credit sequence is Ichigo and Rukia playing an FPS game together on a console in pajamas or lounging clothes while laughing and bantering.

Like, yes, this idea is pretty stupid (although I am increasingly tempted to write it) and a frankly bizarre crossover. But you know what? It feels truer to the characters to me, and less contrived and dumb in setting up why what is happening is. It doesn’t really make the characters needlessly helpless or incompetent to generate those good moments of interaction.

And that is really my problem with Fade to Black: what it has to do to get the good moments outweighs them, for me. Maybe it’s because I just can’t turn my brain off and can’t stop doing critical analysis, but I always feel like the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. (And I kinda feel that way about all the animated movies. I was really surprised by how much I liked the Live Action: it nailed handling things perfectly.)

Other people like it, and that’s fine, but I don’t really intend to ever watch it again.

#Asks #rukia-kuchiki-divided #DoomBleach #god why did this stupid crossover even occur to me #i hate it #but i love it #but i HATE it

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nneefa · 5 years

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fic: linda

fandom: xiaolin showdown

characters: raimundo/kimiko, clay, omi, the tohomikos

summary: if raimundo hadn't known kimiko better, he'd think she was fishing for a compliment, given that omi and clay had just sung her praises. as it was, he did know her better, especially if the glint in her blue eyes was anything to go by, and he suddenly felt very uncomfortable.

notes: ooh, boy. let's see where to start: 1) "linda" means "beautiful" in portuguese; 2) the park our teen kiddos are at is "Shinjuku Gyoen." i highly recommend y'all google it. it's very beautiful; 3) kimiko's yukata is based off this image; 4) this is like headcanons gone wild, but most importantly, credit goes to @sunbirddtellsstories for "Tomoko." i can only hope i portrayed her the way she was intended to be. 5) dedicated to the anon that asked me for raikim. i hope to the heavens that i portrayed the characters accurately.

[[MORE]]

❀

Raimundo barely had time to brace himself as the chilly spring air cut past the defenses of his layered clothing, right down to his bones.

He fought the urge to shiver as he sunk lower and lower into his coat, pulling his skull cap further over his ears before burrowing his hands into the safety of his coat pockets. He watched Clay shake like a pair of maracas on the ground, Omi pressed close to his side, like a squirrel clinging to a tree, in an effort to provide him warmth. He almost wanted to join them, anything to get rid of the goosebumps settling on his skin, but there was hardly any room on the blanket they sat on, with Clay's massive body taking up more than half the space, and somebody had to keep an eye out for Mr. Tohomiko for when he came back. The elderly man had insisted on getting them all hot drinks while they waited for the girls to show.

If only Kimiko were here; she could heat things up in an instant.

Speaking of Kimiko… leave it to her to take a long time, especially when this whole thing was her idea. Okay, maybe it wasn't her idea exactly - more like her sister's - but still. Japan was ridiculously cold. Where he's from, anything below sweltering was foreign, and even if he did spend the better part of three years training in the mountains of China, that didn't mean he was used to it.

Raimundo breathed a deep breath, watching it fade in the frigid air, and turned his gaze away from his friends to survey the park they were in.

Tokyo really was a beautiful city, especially in the spring. The only things he'd seen since their last visit were skyscrapers, shops, and shrines, and while those were nice and all, they paled in comparison to the city's blooming cherry blossom trees.

Sakura, Mr. Tohomiko had called them, stretched as far as the eye could see, the pink and white flowers breathtakingly beautiful against the bright blue sky, like something straight from a painting. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people, families and couples and loners alike, scattered across the large expanse of the park with blankets and baskets and cameras, some seated in the sun having picnics, some relaxed beneath the shade of the trees on the petal-laden ground.

There were women, children, and even some men dressed in elaborately designed kimono for the occasion, though the bulk of them wore regular, civilian clothes, and he wondered briefly if Kimiko would be wearing hers. (He quickly banished the thought). Raimundo was pretty sure he saw at least three ponds on their walk across the park, two different sections of landscape with their own sets of flora and fauna, a pavilion located across a bridge, and from their spot beneath a Sakura tree he could even see a tower in the distance.

If it weren't for the fact that he was waiting for the others, he definitely would've gone exploring by now. What did Kimiko call this festival again? Hanabi? Hanami? Hababi? Whatever! It was nothing like he'd ever seen, and he was thankful the Tohomikos were kind enough to let them join their family outing.

Though I'd truly be thankful if they hurried up, he thought to himself as another gust of wind blew through the park. Any longer out here and I'll be a human popsicle.

Just as he was about to ask Clay and Omi to make room for him, he saw Mr. Tohomiko slip through a gap in the crowd, carrying two cup holders full of piping hot drinks. Raimundo immediately moved after him, his hands already on the drinks before the man could react. "Here, let me help you with that."

Toshiro blinked at him, surprised, but then he smiled before relinquinshing his hold on the items. "You have my gratitude, Pedrosa-san. By the way, I hope I didn't take too long. Japan's spring can be a little unforgiving at times."

"Nah, it's okay," Raimundo replied with a smile of his own, following him to where Clay and Omi were seated. "Though I'm not sure if I can say the same for our pal Clay."

"Forgive me, Bailey-san," Toshiro apologized with a slight bow of his head and a sympathetic smile once they'd reached them. "I wasn't expecting to encounter so many Goo Zombie fans in one place."

"That's quite alright, sir," said Clay, nodding his head in thanks when he handed him a drink from the tray. "If anythin', I should be the one apologizin'. Had I known you'd be swarmed, I'd gone with you."

"With your station, you must get attacked a lot," Omi said, making a grab for one of the teas. "I can't imagine what it's like to be a famous person in such a big city."

"You certainly like to try," Raimundo teased, grinning when the young boy shot him a glare over the rim of his cup.

The Dragon of Water blew into his tea before taking a sip, sparing Toshiro an earnest look. Genuinely, he added, "If you'd like, Mr. Tohomiko, we can accompany you until we return to the temple. We'll make sure no harm befalls Kimiko's papa."

Toshiro let out a hearty laugh, his smile as kind and warm as ever. "What kind young men you are! But there's no need to worry over an old man like me. Kimiko and Tomoko help me plenty already."

"Now that you mention them," Clay trailed off, curling his knees to his chest with a swig of his coffee, "what d'ya reckon's keepin' 'em?"

Toshiro fished into his coat pocket for his cell phone in order to check the time, his brows knitted in confusion. "I'm not sure," he answered. "It has been quite some time since we were scheduled to meet. Perhaps, I should call them."

"Knowing Kimiko, she probably lost track of time doing her nails again, right, Omi?" Raimundo joked, elbowing him with a wink after placing the trays on the blanket. "It wouldn't be the first time, now would it?"

"Nor the last," the younger monk agreed, recalling the time where their friend forgot the Ancient Scroll of the Shen Gong Wu over her panda faces.

"What d'ya think it is this time?" Raimundo asked with a grin, pilfering a cup of hot cocoa from the tray before opting to lean against the tree. "Giraffes or smiley faces?"

Omi shook his head. "She did smiley faces last week." Then he smiled and said, "My butt's on teddy bears."

"Uh, that's 'bet's,' bro," Raimundo corrected him with a raised brow. "I think she'll settle for something simple this time, like french tip."

"My wager's on flowers," Clay added, gesturing to the pink petals on the ground with his cup. "It'd certainly fit the theme of this here's festival."

As the boys continued to ponder over Kimiko's possible nail designs, Toshiro watching the exchange with a hint of amusement, none of them noticed the girls making their way through the crowd, towards their group. Not until one of them called out to Mr. Tohomiko.

"Papa!" Tomoko exclaimed, earning everyone's attention.

She looked completely out of breath as she came to a stop in front of her father, though that did nothing to stop her from smiling, and she hugged him just before launching into an explanation in Japanese. Apparently, her fans had swarmed her on the way here too, and wouldn't let her leave until she'd signed every single autograph and taken every single group photo there was to offer. It was thanks to the efforts of Kimiko that they even made it at all.

Raimundo heard a series of footsteps from behind father and daughter, followed by a chain of frustrated grunts, and knew it was Kimiko and her friend Keiko. Clay and Omi stood up, eager to finally see their teammate after what felt like hours in the cold, dusting cherry blossoms off of their clothes in the process. The Shoku leader smirked into his cup before closing his eyes and taking a swig of his cocoa, relishing in the sweetness just as Kimiko came into view.

"Geez, Kim. It took you long enough," he teased after swallowing his drink. "D'you have any idea how long we've been waiting for y-" But the faux complaint died on his lips when he finally opened his eyes and saw her, and in that moment only one word came to mind.

"What," Kimiko shot back with a raised brow, a smirk dancing across on her face. "Cat got your tongue? Say something!"

If Raimundo had thought Tokyo was beautiful in the spring before, then that was nothing compared to how Kimiko looked now. While a tiny, fleeting part of him had hoped she was wearing a kimono, he hadn't really expected her to go the whole nine, considering how much she'd loathed them in the past, but then again, it wouldn't really be Kimiko if she wasn't constantly proving him wrong.

She stood out like a flower all on her own in her black kimono, a dark swirl in a sea of color. Small pink and white petals adorned the top half of it, much like the cherry blossoms surrounding them, including the sleeves, though the closer it got to the bottom, they varied in size and shape until it was bursting with color, and holding it all together was a bright, gold sash and red string. Of course, her outfit wouldn't be complete if she didn't have a purse to match. Her hair was fashioned with both the Tangled Web Comb and Changing Chopsticks in an elaborately braided bun, her face framed by the loose, black curls that managed to escape her updo.

Had it been him three years ago, he'd have acted like an idiot and teased her on the spot, anything to downplay his attraction. But now, at 16-years-old, Raimundo found himself, not for the first time, speechless. She was- Kimiko was-

"Beautiful!" Omi had blurted at the top of his lungs.

Raimundo hadn't realized he'd been gawking at her like some kinda dopey, cross-eyed schoolboy until the small monk was no longer at his side, but fluttering about Kimiko with all the tenacity of a 13-year-old boy in love. Quickly, he averted his gaze to Keiko, whom he acknowledged with a nod of his head, as heat settled in his ears and cheeks, and for once since he'd arrived in Japan, he found himself grateful for the cold. He didn't trust his voice and he was pretty sure he looked like a tomato right now.

"Look at you! Well, aren't you 'bout as pretty as a magnolia in May?" Clay remarked, tipping his hat up with a finger to get a better view of their friend.

Omi nodded his head with a flourish as he admired her apperance from head to toe. "You look very pretty, Kimiko. You've even managed to incorporate the Changing Chopsticks into your wardrobe this time!"

Kimiko's cheeks darkened, though she beamed at their compliments, and she touched the aforementioned Shen Gong Wu with her free hand. "You like? At first I wasn't going to add them, but it went too well with my outfit to pass up. Plus, you never know when it'll come in handy."

"And look!" Omi cooed excitedly, taking her hand and holding it up like he'd just uncovered a new Shen Gong Wu. "She even styled her nails after France, just like you said Raimundo."

Quietly, she looked to Rai, who hadn't said a single word since she'd first arrived and raised a brow at him, her cocky smirk ever-present. "Well, Rai? What do you think?"

If Raimundo hadn't known Kimiko better, he'd think she was fishing for a compliment, given that Omi and Clay had just sung her praises. As it was, he did know her better, especially if the glint in her blue eyes was anything to go by, and he suddenly felt very uncomfortable. She'd purposely put him on the spot. (Granted, Omi did it first; he'd have to have a little talk with him about this later). He was vaguely aware that the guys were staring at him, anticipating his next words, but thankfully Tomoko had latched onto her sister's arm before Raimundo could loosen the knot on his tongue and speak.

He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when the older Tohomiko girl had pulled her, and by extension Keiko, towards Toshiro for a group photo, with Omi as their photographer. Clay put a hand on Raimundo's shoulder as the group huddled together, a soft, yet knowing smile overtaking the cowboy's lips.

"That pretty, huh?" Clay asked, dropping his hand when Rai looked at him.

Though his hot cocoa was long gone, Raimundo felt a warmth settle in his stomach as turned back to face the group, just in time to see a genuine smile break out over Kimiko's face. For the first time ever, he found himself admitting a very obvious truth: Kimiko was beautiful.

"Yeah."

Clay blinked, taken aback by his best friend's gentle admission, but it didn't last very long and soon he found himself smiling too.

#xiaolin showdown #raikim #raimundo pedrosa #kimiko tohomiko #clay bailey #omi #toshiro tohomiko #neefa writes

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